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A24 has become known for its unique and high-quality films, and this year is no different. From thrilling dramas to quirky comedies, the studio has an exciting lineup of movies set to release in 2025. Whether you’re a fan of gripping stories, stunning visuals, or bizarre plots, there’s something for everyone.

1. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl is a black comedy drama directed by Rungano Nyoni, featuring Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela, and Henry B.J. Phiri. The film is a co-production between Ireland, the UK, the US, and Zambia. It premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024 and was released in the UK and Ireland in December 2024. It is set to hit US theaters on March 7, 2025, by A24.

The story follows Shula, who finds her uncle’s body on an empty road one night. As the family starts funeral preparations, Shula and her cousins...

"Architecture is just a way to think about how we live." Madman Films from Australia has unveiled the first official trailer for a documentary film titled Architecton, the latest film from master documentarian Victor Kossakovsky. This first premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival last year, and will be released in the US sometime later in 2025. An extraordinary journey through the material that makes up our habitat: concrete and its ancestor, stone. Architecton is an epic, intimate, and very poetic meditation on architecture and how the design & construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction — and offer hope for survival and a way forward. Rocks & stone connect the disparate societies, from ghostly monoliths stuck in the earth to tragic heaps of concrete rubble waiting to be hauled off & repurposed anew. Through Kossakovsky's inquisitive lens, the grandeur and folly of humanity and its precarious relationship with nature posits the urgent question: How do we build,...

Awards contenders dominate new releases at UK and Ireland cinemas this weekend as Babygirl, Maria and A Real Pain all launch.

Nicole Kidman returns withBabygirl,which Entertainment Film Distributors is opening in 575 locations. Halina Reijn’s 18-ratederotic drama stars Kidmanas a high-powered CEO who becomes embroiled in an affair with a young intern, played by Harris Dickinson. Further cast include Antonio Banderas and Sophie Wilde.

Other awards contenders with 18-ratings include this year’s Anora, which grossed just shy of £2m for Universal and 2023’s Poor Things, with a £1.6m opening and a £7.1m total run for Disney’s Searchlight.

Universal’s “Nosferatu” made a chilling debut at the U.K. and Ireland box office, securing the overall top spot with £5.2 million ($6.5 million), including previews.

Over the three-day weekend the gothic horror remake, with $3.8 million, was just behind Disney’s “Mufasa: The Lion King.” The photorealistic animation continued to roar with $4 million in its third week, bringing its total to $25.9 million.

Studiocanal’s “We Live in Time” landed in third place with $3.5 million. Meanwhile, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” from Paramount, last weekend’s chart-topper, dropped to fourth, adding $3.3 million to its total of $23.4 million. Disney’s “Moana 2” continued to show remarkable staying power, rounding out the top five with $2.2 million in its sixth week for a cumulative gross of $47.8 million.

Universal’s “Wicked” held firm in sixth place, earning $2 million in its seventh week, pushing its total to $71.7 million. The family favorite “Paddington in Peru” from Studiocanal slipped to seventh,...

Screenis listing the 2024 release dates for films in the UK and Ireland in the calendar below.

For distributors who wish to add/amend a date on the calendar, please get in touch withScreenhere.Screenis also running a calendar for festival and market dates throughout 2025here.

January

Wednesday, January 1

Nosferatu(Universal),2073(Altitude),Vanangaan(DJ Tech),Game Changer(Dreamz),We Live In Time(Studiocanal)

Friday, January 3

Nickel Boys(Curzon),Rocco And His Brothers(BFI),Diabel(Magnetes)

Wednesday, January 8

A Real Pain(Disney)

Friday, January 10

Babygirl(Efd),The Girl With The Needle(Mubi),Maria(Studiocanal),The Damned(Vertical/Miracle),It’s Raining Men...

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, and Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada have joined the line-up for AFI Fest running October 23-27.

The full roster includes Samir Oliveros’s The Luckiest Man In America, and Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s Zurawski v Texas from executive producers Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence.

Women and non-binary directors account for 48% of the official selection, and films from Bipoc filmmakers represent 26% of the line-up.

Festival highlights include No Other Land by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal; David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds...

AFI Fest is primed and ready to roll out.

The American Film Institute revealed the full lineup for this month’s festival, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles from Oct. 23-27. Joining the previously announced roster of films will be Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, Samir Oliveros’ The Luckiest Man in America, Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s abortion rights documentary Zurawski v Texas (executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence), and Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, among many others.

The lineup includes six red carpet premieres, 12 special screenings, 13 luminaries picks, 15 discovery films, 12 world cinema films, 14 documentaries, four after-dark titles, 54 films in the short film competition and 28 films from the AFI Conservatory Showcase presented by AMC Networks. Other notable titles include Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse with Chloë Sevigny; Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste; Paolo Sorrentino...

Exclusive: Sandbox Films and Cph:dox — the prestigious documentary film festival in Copenhagen — are teaming up on a new award that will elevate the profile of science-themed storytelling.

The Sandbox Films Science Pitch Prize at Cph:forum, announced today, “will be presented to a science documentary project presented at the Cph:forum that demonstrates exceptional innovation in the genre, artistic merit, and a commitment to inclusivity,” according to release. Cph:forum is the festival’s “long-standing financing and co-production event dedicated to visually strong creative documentary projects with international potential.”

The new prize comes with a $25,000 cash award.

Sandbox Films, a leading production company that occupies the intersection of science and cinema, and Cph:dox have a long-standing partnership, “united by a shared passion for science documentaries that push creative boundaries,” the release noted. “Both organizations are dedicated to supporting films that explore science in bold, innovative ways, reflecting a mutual love for projects that...

Exclusive: Sffilm’s prestigious Doc Stories is set to welcome a slew of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmakers to its 10th anniversary event next month, along with industry heavyweights Keri Putnam, Laura Kim, Carrie Lozano, and Justine Nagan.

The documentary festival, which runs from October 17-20 in San Francisco, unveiled its full lineup this morning, highlighted by new work from Kevin Macdonald, Ben Proudfoot, Raoul Peck, Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, and Pedro Kos, as well as a classic from Amy Berg about a singer who stunned San Francisco with her talent more than 50 years ago. [Scroll for the full program]

Macdonald opens the festival with One to One: John and Yoko, co-directed by Sam Rice-Edwards, “which chronicles John and Yoko’s musical, personal, artistic, social, and political world set against the backdrop of a turbulent era in American history.”

The closing night film belongs to Suburban Fury,...

The 2024 edition of Sffilm Doc Stories is celebrating a milestone year as the festival toasts its 10th anniversary.

This year’s four-day program will take place from October 17 through 20, and open with Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ “One to One: John & Yoko,” about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 18 months living in the U.S.

The festival will close out with a full circle moment, marking the premiere of Robinson Devor’s “Suburban Fury,” which was funded in part by a 2012 Sffilm Rainin Grant. “Suburban Fury” tells the story of Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford on a crowded sidewalk in San Francisco’s Union Square in September of 1975.

The 2024 Sffilm Doc Stories lineup includes 10 features, two shorts programs, two filmmaking and industry talks, and a documentary filmmaking workshop for teens.

The Doc Stories weekend will kick off with a free, retrospective screening of Amy Berg...

BFI Distribution has picked up UK and Ireland rights to Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary Architecton from The Match Factory.

The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in Competition and sees Russian filmmaker Kossakovsky explore the history of concrete and stone as building materials. Described as a “meditation on architecture”, it also explores what the ancient past can reveal about our future.

Other festival outings have included Hong Kong and Karlovy Vary while the film has its UK premiere at BFI London Film Festival next month.

It is produced by Germany’s ma.ja.de Filmproduktion in co­production...

BFI Distribution has picked up UK and Ireland rights to Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary Architecton from The Match Factory.

The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in Competition and sees Russian filmmaker Kossakovsky explore the history of concrete and stone as building materials. Described as a “meditation on architecture”, it also explores what the ancient past can reveal about our future.

Other festival outings have included Hong Kong and Karlovy Vary while the film has its UK premiere at BFI London Film Festival next month.

It is produced by Germany’s ma.ja.de Filmproduktion in co­production...

A 17-title buying spree from Scandinavian and Baltic distributor NonStop Entertainment includes deals for Mati Diop’s Berlinale Golden Bear winner Dahomey, and Aaron Schimberg’s Sundance title A Different Man.

Diop’s documentary Dahomey tells the story of 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey (located within present-day Benin in Africa) that were returned to Benin after being held in a French museum. Films du Losange handles sales.

Sold by A24, Schimberg’s A Different Man stars Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson in the story of a man with neurofibromatosis, who undergoes surgery for a new start...

The Match Factory has unveiled multiple distribution deals for its Berlinale competition titles Dying by Matthias Glasner and Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky.

Dying has secured distribution in key territories including France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media As), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film), and South Korea (Pancinema). Negotiations for additional territories are underway, with a UK deal already confirmed.

Dying, which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, along with the...

The Match Factory has unveiled multiple distribution deals for its Berlinale competition titles Dying by Matthias Glasner and Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky.

Dying has secured distribution in key territories including France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media As), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film), and South Korea (Pancinema). Negotiations for additional territories are underway, with a UK deal already confirmed.

Dying, which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, along with the...

The Match Factory has revealed multiple distribution deals for two Berlinale competition titles: German director Matthias Glasner’s “Dying,” which won the festival’s Silver Bear for best screenplay, and Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary “Architecton.”

“Dying,” which stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg and Corinna Harfouch, also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. Variety‘s review describes the film as “a profoundly affecting exploration of life and loss.”

The Match Factory closed deals for the film in France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film) and South Korea (Pancinema). A U.K. deal has also been signed with the buyer yet to be announced. Wild Bunch will be distributing the film in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland.

The Match Factory has locked multi-territory deals on Berlinale titles Architecton by Victor Kossakovsky and Dying by Matthias Glasner, which picked up the festival’s Silver Bear for Best Screenplay.

Alongside the Silver Bear, Dying also picked up the Guild of German Arthouse Cinemas Prize and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Jury Award. The pic has sold to France (Bodega Film), Italy (Satine Film), Benelux (September Film Distribution), Norway (Selmer Media As), Poland (Aurora), Cis (Provzglyad), Ex-Yugoslavia (McF MegaCom Film), Hungary (Cirko Films), Greece (Cinobo), Romania (Freealize), Taiwan (Andrews Film), and South Korea (Pancinema). Match Factory has said negotiations for additional territories are underway, with a UK deal already confirmed. Deadline’s Stephanie Bunbury described the film as a “deep and darkly funny family drama.” The film stars Lars Eidinger, Lilith Stangenberg, and Corinna Harfouch.

Elsewhere, Kossakovsky’s Architecton has sold to me Spain (Caramel Films), Italy (Be Water), Benelux (Cherry Pickers Filmdistributie...

It’s very easy to misread the title of Victor Kossakovsky’s latest documentary as “Architection,” since it is, in some ways, a detective story about the world we live in, albeit one in which it is very easy to figure out whodunit (spoiler: we did it to ourselves). The actual title, Architecton, is a Greek word that means “master builder,” and the film plays with the irony of what that may mean — pitting the “master builders” of yesteryear against the “master builders“ of today — from the very beginning, using a cryptic line from “L’aquilone,” a rumination on bygone times by Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli (1855-1912). “There is something new within the sun today, or rather ancient,” he writes. This fascinating, engrossing film interrogates the subtext of this seemingly paradoxical statement.

In a haunting prolog, we see the ruins of a housing estate in what is presumably war-torn Ukraine...

The awards ceremony for the 74th Berlin International Film Festival kicks off Saturday night, where this year’s jury, headed by 12 Years a Slave and Black Panther actress Lupita Nyong’o, will hand out the coveted Gold and Silver Bears.

Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha’s Iranian drama My Favourite Cake is being given good odds for an award this year. The drama, about a 70-year-old widow and her tentative attempts at romance with an age-appropriate taxi driver, was a critical fave. A win for the film would also send a political message after the Iranian government banned the directors from attending Berlin. If the jury picks out Cake for the Golden Bear it would be the third time in 10 years —following Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015) and There Is No Evil (2020) from Mohammad Rasoulof —that Berlin has given its top honor to Iranian directors in absentia. World sales for My...

Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs and Mati Diop’s Dahomey earned strong average scores on Screen’s Berlin jury grid, while Bruno Dumont’s The Empire divided critics.

A Traveler’s Needs stars Isabelle Huppert as a French woman teaching in Korea and is currently on an average of 2.9, with one score still to come (from Paolo Bertolin from cinematografo.it). Screen’s own critic awarded it four stars (excellent), while three critics gave it three stars (good) and three gave it two (average).

Click on the jury grid above for the most up-to-date version.

The score is currently slighter...

“We need a new idea of beauty,” says Michele De Lucchi, the Italian architect who talks us through certain stretches of “Architecton,” a singularly imposing and sonorous new documentary from Russian non-fiction auteur Victor Kossakovsky. His argument is that the earth can no longer sustain the kind of hefty architectural grandeur, built from the fabric of the Earth itself, that we’ve asthetically prized for centuries, and nor can the cycle of more disposable concrete construction continue without devastating environmental impact. It’s a sound point, even as Kossakovsky’s film trades in entirely classic ideas of beauty to jaw-dropping effect. Whether gazing in rapt widescreen across wondrous ancient structures, ruined recent cityscapes or the oceanic shift and shake of a stone quarry in action, this is blatantly dazzling, epic-scale filmmaking that nonetheless invites viewers to consider the implications of our awe.

What is it about man-made landmarks that moves...

Kirsten Niehuus, head of German film fund Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, is confident that the changes to film funding proposed by the German government recently will have a “very positive effect on the production scene in Berlin-Brandenburg.”

The proposed changes to the funding system were presented last week to German lawmakers in the Bundestag by commissioner for culture and media Claudia Roth (see here).

Kirsten Niehuus, Martin Moszkowicz

Speaking to Variety Saturday at a party Medienboard hosted at Berlin’s Holzmarkt, Niehuus said the changes “will mean that we would have a tax system in place that could compete, for instance, with Budapest or Prague, so that not so many German productions would go and shoot somewhere else, and more foreign productions would come and shoot in Germany.”

Looking at the media landscape across Germany she notes that one major challenge is the decision by high-end outlets such as Paramount+, HBO and Sky to cancel local productions,...

The Match Factory has acquired international rights to Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s new documentary Architecton ahead of its Berlinale world premiere.

The film project follows the filmmaker’s farmyard doc Gunda, which played in Berlinale Encounters in 2020, and Aquerala, which world premiered Out of Competition In Venice in 2018.

The Match Factory describes Kossakovsky’s new film as “an epic, intimate and poetic meditation” on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal mankind’s present destruction.

Focusing on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele de Lucci, Kossakovsky reflects on the rise and fall of civilizations, using imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to Ad 60, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in early 2023.

“Victor Kossakosvsky possesses the remarkable ability to amplify seldom-heard voices on the screen. Demonstrating his mastery in previous works like Gunda and Aquarela,...

The Match Factory has acquired the international rights to the Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary “Architecton,” which world premieres in the competition section of the Berlinale. A24 financed the film and will distribute it in North America.

“Architecton” follows Kossakovsky’s highly acclaimed “Gunda,” which played in Berlinale Encounters in 2020, and “Aquarela,” which screened in Venice’s out of competition section in 2018.

“Architecton” is described as “an epic, intimate and poetic meditation on architecture and how the design and construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction — and offer hope for survival and a way forward.”

The film centers on a landscape project by the Italian architect Michele de Lucci, which Kossakovsky uses to reflect on the rise and fall of civilizations. He captures breathtaking imagery from the temple ruins of Baalbek in Lebanon, dating back to 60 Ad, to the recent destruction of cities in Turkey following...

The Match Factory has acquired international sales rights to Russian director Victor Kossakovsky’s documentary Architecton which world premieres next month in the Berlinale’s Competition section

Architecton is billed as a meditation on architecture and how the design and the construction of buildings from the ancient past reveal our destruction — and offer hope for survival and a way forward.

Kossakovsky’s previous films include 2020 Berlinale Encounters title Gunda and Aquarela, which played out of competition at Venice in 2018.

Architecton is produced by Heino Deckert for Germany’s Ma.ja.de. A24 financed and will distribute the film in North America.